Friday, June 29, 2012

Perfect Time For Ice Cream

School is out and we have settled into summer. One thing my kids love is ice cream - a bit of a challenge without milk. Since we like the flavor of coconut milk, it works as a great alternative for cream for us. It's easy to make a simple chocolate or vanilla ice cream with coconut milk.

This recipe is a lighter version of ice cream with lots of strawberries in it. The coconut milk makes it creamy.

Dairy-Free Strawberry Ice Cream

1 1/2 lb. strawberries, frozen
1 - 14 oz. can of coconut milk
      (regular)
1/4 c. orange juice
1/2 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla

If you own a high powered blender, blend all ingredients per instructions on your machine, adding a little more liquid if needed. Mixture should hold its shape and be thick. Serve or freeze right away.

If your blender is not able to make soft serve consistency from frozen fruit, use fresh, or partially or fully thawed strawberries. You can then use an ice cream maker to freeze it or pour it into a container and put in the freezer, stirring every 1/2 to 1 hour until frozen. When using the pan method, blending the ice cream again when it's frozen but still a little soft will give it a smoother texture by breaking up the ice crystals. If the ice cream becomes too firm to blend, let it melt a little rather than add more liquid before blending it.

Notes:  If your ice cream is not as smooth as you would like, you can blend the fresh, or partially or fully thawed strawberries first and strain them to remove the seeds before adding the rest of the ingredients. This should not be necessary with a high powered blender.